Ballad to Bobby Brown....

I saw you there. Inside out and backwards. 17 or 21, ID flicked, flipped, flashed.... you were a natural. I've imagined a million times what you would look like, walk like, talk like ten years, twenty, a lifetime from now. And then I saw you. In yesterday.

Toothy grin, crooked and upward, my favorite "I just had a shot" smile...Skinny legs, jeans too short, but frayed, worn, loved..."In case I meet a hippie".....Mind racing, writing Country Top 10 songs on legal pads, eyes dancing....rock and roll and punk...strobe lights flashing.....And that f'n grin....that gun it grin...race, tumble, roll....Gun it, grin...

I don't dream about you anymore. Wonder what you're doing. Tink you. But I miss you. And I saw you in yesterday. 20 years younger. Before you were you. And just so you know, I laughed....And danced ....

And when I came home,
jeans crumpled in a pile,
key in the door,
memories plopped on the kitchen counter,
I slept....
and thanked God I wasn't there in the beginning....

but was there for the end....

Deja Vue...

Hello Tomorrow

My legs were crossed, all lady like, and my right sneakered foot was just~a~swingin' in tandem with hers, crossed at the knee. We were keeping mad time together. Pacing in place. The lobby was full... Broken lives hooked to IV poles, held up by other's... faces blank, tired, scared, old~schooled. Hugs and how~to~do's were quietly passed in "shhhhhhhh.....we're in church now" fashion. I flipped through the pages of the Reader's Digest so fast and hard, it sounded like I was shufflin' poker cards, and I concentrated on making that same sound over and over again.
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And then they called her name. For a moment I wasn't sure I could walk without having my legs crossed, right one swinging. What other nervous tic could I develop that would be socially acceptable? And hide my fear..... What other nervous tic could I invent that could pass off for strength? How was I going to catch her when she collapsed? And who would catch me?
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He smiled. That handsome Doctor smile. Babyesque brown eyes, old already. Lips curled just enough to make you wonder who his Dentist was, and why on earth he chose to practice this type of medicine. Why on earth he didn't want to be a Soap Opera Star....
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She had been summoned here. To this room at this time with these people. For the news. We waited. He talked. Drew pictures. Circled foreign words on endless reports. Nodded his head up and down as if we understood. And then we did. Sweet Jesus! Remission! Gone! Poof! Not there! Unremarkable scans. Nothing here, there, over there, in that.....crawling, corrupting, eroding. Nothing!


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We stood in the parking lot, in the rain, and cried. Laughed. Hallelujahed the sky! Tried to dial numbers. Skinny's. Papa's. The kids. The boys. And then we decided to party.....
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.\And we know how to party.....
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Thursday night, Friday night....into the wee, wee hours. At 4'oclock this morning, I fell into bed. Kimbies curled up like a rolly poly on my little living room couch. Her dancin' boots in a heap, her little blue bandana

still on her noggin'.....
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And I slept like I've never ever slept before....
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In peace.
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With Stevie Ray Vaughan there in the shadows, whispering lullabyes for the soul......
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And Tomorrow, just outside the window....
Smiling...

Spooky little night....

I heard it from the living room. Over the dog panting in whispers from the leather chair. Over the air humming, rattling the vents. Over the funny sky, winteresque at 90 degrees, churning outside the windows. The ticking. The tocking. The incessent heartbeat of time. Just before the storm broke loose, I paraded into the kitchen to stare the clock in the face and bellow...."I hear you!"


And then I saw it....

The second hand chirping at seven. Over and over again. The minute hand frozen. Rickety tickety tock. Time stuck in a rut, wearing a groove pattern in the plastic face of yesterday/tomorrow/now. I stood barefooted and stared. Willed the hands to move. Lightening flashed from behind the fiesta ware. Thunder clapped. Rickety tickety tock. The second hand quivered, lingered, shuttered, slammed back into the 7th house. Just beyond midnight.


A friend called and said he had seen a ghost. Felt it. The second hand shimmied.

Every call I took or made was disconnected. My end. Their end. Disconnected.


Spooky little night....
By the time I wake up in the morning, the batteries should finally be dead. Time will have stopped and finally I'll recharge. Set the hands where I want them

and

start all over again....


At the beginning.....


the middle....


or the end....


Wherever the music plays...

"Will you be my friend?"

I layed belly to the sky, toes draped lazily over the edge of the yellow vinyl raft, fingers air drumming in the water....drifting....in circles. I never opened my eyes, pretending to know when the clouds passed and exactly how they were shaped by the heat on my eyelids.....rubber stamps of sunshine in the cool negative shape of angels, elephants on their hind legs, horses with wings.....

I listened to the wind. To the trinkets in the sky. The natty faded towels on the clothesline; a sudden parade of American Flags....exactly the same size, the same color, as my kindegarten year.....hand over my heart ....the fabric billowing, the chain clanking hauntingly against the pole. Squirrels, or rats maybe, I don't know, ratatatted back and forth across the crooked fence line, racing madly to nowhere. There was traffic in the distance, and then close. Boom boxes rattling. Gears shifting. A siren. Still, I didn't open my eyes. This was my peace. And I was gonna live it.....

I don't remember dreaming. I don't remember the 45 minutes I disappeared from earth forever.

But I remembered how I got there. Comfy cozy in the lazy round river. Waiting on the boys. Floating round and round and round....saying thank you......

Peace where you can find it....

I'm too many people. Our dictationist, Sweet Sunny Anne, had a stroke in January, and I hauled her little machine home and took over where she left off. Everyday she goes to Rehab and every night I type on and on and on.... She's learning to walk again and talk again....and maybe one day, live again.... Until then I'm typing....

My right arm, Emily, is finally on the kidney transplant list. It's her turn now. We watch the clock and wait for the beep.... "It's your turn now"..... and I pray it won't be long. She's irreplaceable, so when she retired at the early age of "I have to", I didn't even try.

Chey got offered the moon and the stars on some crazy undiscovered planet, and after 17 years, flew the coop, feathers flying. I miss her. The good Doctor misses her. The patient's miss her. And if I didn't have straight blonde hair, I could pass for her...

I wake up kicking, tossing, flinging, flailing. remembering everything I forgot to do the day before. I grit my teeth. Make endless lists that I forget to read and plop them on the empty refrigerator.

Today, my part~time help quit. She was an angel. She wants to live her life. Not spend it clockin' in..... counting change....X-ing off days on the calender for being free. She wants to be free now.

I smiled. She cried and told me it was OK to cuss her. I hugged her.

Tonight I came home and pulled out the markers, the pencils, the pens..... and colored. For the first time since hell broke out at my house , a mermaid the color of a 1000 tadpoles surfaced on the bent pages of my notebook. Her peace sign, tethered to her neck, floating up.... up....up....free....

And I remembered,
in the end peace wins....

You gotta live it, to know it....

Overflow......

It's an old house and I'm an old woman. Things are bound to fall apart. And so it goes....

I turn the blue and silver cap slowly, a delicate twist of my wrist, less the bottle neck shatter into a thousand pieces.....
And then, I chug good and hard....

It's beer time, baby.....

The shower gurgles up into the toilet and the toilet runs until the pump gets hot. When the pump gets hot the cold water stops flowing and I've scalded myself silly three 5 minute showers in a row. It's OK. I don't need to rinse off, the wayward boys took off with the soap and the shampoo and I swim with tadpoles, remember?

They disconnected my internet for non payment and I promptly took care of the problem and they politely turned me back on Thirty minutesbefore lightening struck the telephone pole, scampered down the cable and knocked the whole system out. There's a post~it note on the screen now,
It says "don't you dare".....

My broken foot is broken,
and tomorrow I'm wearing combat boots to work,
My key got stuck in the broken kitchen door and I had to break the plywood to crawl through the already broken glass to let Georgia out the broken back door.....
and there's a post-it note there too....
it says "Lock the broken door or the cats will get out"......

I pulled my clothes from the washer and hung them on the line and it rained. Thank God the sky is broken. The rust from the washer was smeared all over my new "I am free" T-shirt and I'm hoping the heavens will rinse it out.

The house is 3 inches deep in cat hair and dog hair and the confetti of my life. The vacuum makes loud noises and spits at my shins.

It's dark here, every 1000 hour light bulb blew out at once and I used all my candles for the hurricanes 3 years ago. I have to keep typing or the screen saver comes on and I can't see a damn thing in the living room.....



Everything is broken,
but the circle.....

Rest in Peace.....

In the beginning, we were newbies. I remember where we sat and what I wore. The songs the band played. The wig Ms. Betsy had on. I smiled. Tapped my tennis shoed foot on the floor and finally, solo-d it on the dance floor. Kevin joined me. He couldn't hear the music and he couldn't introduce himself. We had to scooch really close to the drums before he smiled. He had to write his name on a napkin before I smiled. He couldn't hear. He couldn't speak. But, by God, he could feel it....

52 Fridays times two plus some have passed. I've barreled through the doors in cowboy boots, combat boots, barefooted. I've hugged people, kissed people, and just once.....slapped a wayward soul. I've slow danced, low danced, fast danced, no~touch danced.....held my lighter to the sky, my bottle to the heavens, and held my breath. I've fallen in love, met angels and demons, and family here. I've come through the painted door high on martini moons, wild from full moons, and tiptoed through no moons. I've been free here.

On Friday I knew.....

Ran my fingers down the painted front door and scrunched my nose up to the make believe speak easy.....

And made my entrance fit for an exit.....

Rumors.....

You never know what to believe.....

Fireworks

I dated a nice boy. Once. He opened car doors and brought me donuts on Saturday. He wore khaki pants and golf shirts. Had a retirement plan and took good care of his parents. When he kissed me the first time, I almost fainted. From boredom. And then he sweet talked me. In baby talk.

"Why can't you just find a nice guy and settle down?" She said to me, slurping her McCoffee.....

"Lemme tell you why" I giggled . Remembering.

I like to have fun. I like to laugh til I cry and cry til I laugh. I like to dance. Low and fast. Touching and no touching. In the streets and in the rain. I like to dress up and dress down. I like to be shocked and to be rocked. I like to be IN LOVE and I love to be liked.

I believe in butterflies.....

Choose Peace

I can see him clearly through my early morning windshield, love bugs and pollen peppering my view. He faces me in traffic, unshaven and brusque in his little fleet truck. We are at a stand still. I can't budge an inch and he wants to snake through traffic, dart actually, to get his morning coffee. He sneers. Lifts his hands from the steering wheel and abruptly motions me to get the hell out of his way. I smile. This aint no helicopter, baby. He flips me off. I smile again and the light turns green. Peace. He guns past me. I thank him for the 30 second delay it took me to welcome him through traffic. You never know when the butterfly effect begins....

She fidgets with the credit card machine. Slides my card through it again and again, upside down and backwards. Wiggles the cord. Checks for a dial tone. Clears the register. The lady behind me in the three inch heels clicks her feet on the terazza floor. Clickity clickety click. "I'm already late!" she pecks into the air, a skinny little bird waiting on worms to fall from the sky. I smile. The cashier tries it again, apologizes, and it takes. I thank her, and on turning, wish the high heeled haughty behind me a better morning....."Once you're late, you're late..... enjoy the ride..."

Tiny little rhinestones keep fallin' off my favorite shirt, the peace sign slowly crumbling , disappearing. I touch the remaining few. This tye-dyed comfy cozy gift from my oldest grandaughter..... from my heart, is fading. I cross the parking lot and a raspy six year old voice follows me in the wind. "Mommy, look, I found a diamond, a diamond! Mommmy, Look!" His face lights up, glows up, beams..... and his chubby little fingers coddle the treasure. Climbing into the car, I smile.....

The butterfly effect......

Choose peace, people.....

It's priceless.....

Swimmin' with frogs....

I scooched down the ladder, one step... two...third's a charm....and plowed into the pretend ocean, water streaming past my face, Christmas tinsel in the sun. God, I love this pool!

The yellow raft bobbed, up and down. Suddenly splashed, it looked like a radiator gurgling in the summer heat...steam rising, bubbles popping. I reached for it, ready to plop my Saturday skin in it's arms. Then she croaked. Made this funny tweaky sound. And I saw him. The frog. "Shooooooo!" I fussed. He looked at me and croaked. "Arrrrrrggggh" I gently lifted the raft over the edge of the pool, pinned the edges to the tidy whitey clothes line that hangs like a broken power line over the lazy round river and let the yellow mattress blow in the wind, it's bottom sweeping the grass....."Shooooo, little one" I whispered. He croaked again. "Come on bud, I made you a ladder and everything"..... He croaked.

I swam that day. No floating. I gave in and let him sit perched on my vinyl dream, staring at me.

Yesterday I woke up to a sea of tadpoles, splashing, swimming, playing follow the leader, dip and dive, "Look, Ma, Look!" in my little round river.....


Squatter's rights.....

Pixies for peace

His little fingers open and close, the tissue paper soft wings of a newborn butterfly resting for just a moment, on the knotty limbs of an oak tree. He traces my veins and wrinkles, smiles, and holds on tight. Sighs and closes his eyes. For just a moment, I close mine, too. And I pray I'll live long enough, laugh often enough, to become a hundred year old pixie in his memories.



I'm standing at the ocean wall. And I feel her. Rising up in my heart. Hear her. See her. I spin around and know they feel her, too. Nana. She's at the bar playing Cahoot's with strangers. She's in patent leather knee high boots dancing with her new best friends. She has little lady fingernail shells stuffed in her yellow pocketbook. Magic potions in her carpetbag. She tossles my hair, runs her finger down my sunburnt nose, and throws her head back. Laughs and shoos me off...."Have fun, be free, little ones..."



Her face is scribbled. A thousand wrinkles swimming in every direction. Blonde hair piled on her head in banana curls. She's beautiful. The band drags their cords and amps, speakers, guitars, drums across the deck. "Testing one, two, three, testing".....and then she's gone. We're on our own. The man across the bar, with the Bon Jovi hair, rises and walks toward us. Giant fuscia hibiscus blooms in his hands. "For the flower children" he smiles....



And I look up at the sky and thank her.

One upon a time there was a place called Peace....

The sheets weren't sandy the first night. They were crisp and clean and not yet damp from the salt air and the mist machines just outside our door. The towels were Motel white and folded like starched flamingos walking the wire, not yet heaped on the floor, dumplin's in a pile. And we laughed....


On the 7th night I cried. And we clinked. And counted our change. And decided we could never go home.

So we stayed one more night.
One more sunrise.
One more round of tides....
And laughed....



Kimbies won a bucket of Domestics at Beer Bingo
and Skinny won a bucket of Choice....
We saddled our boogie boards and rode naked in the waves....
Each new wave, the Mother of all Waves, yankin' down our britches and unlacing our ties....
We fell...
In the waves, on the deck, over the sprinklers, out of chairs, up the stairs, and in love.
We danced...
Barefooted and bikini bottomed, in gypsy gowns to the ground, and in cowboy boots. With friends and with strangers. All by ourselves.



This morning, I leaned over the deck railing, toes to the edge, and blew her kisses. Thanked her. Wayward child at the train station. She knows I'll be back. And no matter what happens between now and then, when she sees me, she'll scoop me up in her beer foam arms and rock me back to peace........



"In the End, Peace Wins...."

"Thank you, Ocean".....

Spit.....

She stood on the patio. White patent leather sandals and cheese curl toes to the very edge of the concrete. From the kitchen I watched her blow and blow and blow, a giant "Achooooooo!", white eyelet dress billowing in the wind. "Achooo! Achoooo! Achooo!" I whispered "God bless you" but she didn't hear me, she was too busy spittin' the devil out....

Our Mama made us do that. When I fibbed that the neighbor's dog bit me in the shin, and really, it was our Princess, aggravated by being aggravated, but I couldn't risk tellin' the truth.....When I stole the Ford Fairlane, joyriding for three blocks before we finally hit traffic and bailed.....When we sold toilet paper flowers to the neighbors because we were hungry, and we weren't, but we were inventive....Our Mama made us spit the devil out......

And so tonight, I did that. Hammered up "Do not trespass" signs on the squeaky screen door and the picket fence, the psychedelic pass through to the laundrey room. It's been hell week. And we're goin' to the beach. Fate and everything ugly has raised it's rheumy arm to trip us up, to stop us in our tracks, to rock our peace. And I almost fell for it. Until I remembered to spit the devil out.....

Peace~love my friends,

If we Just make it through the night.....

Swimmin' up hill.....

I fall in face first. Imagine the blue Kool~aid waves crashing on the blow up shoreline. Slip into my mermaid skin and day dream. Five more days. My hair billows out on the surface, a thousand golden sea snakes swimming in a halo.... I open my eyes wide, wider, and wait. My contacts float off, tiny cavier eggs finally free. I smile for them. Five more days. And then no more counting....

I float in a circle, upside down and backwards, the current finally catching up to me, and then turn around and plow into it! This is how it feels when you take off from the seawall running, running, running and the ocean finally laps you up, whisks you away, slathering you with kisses. I can't wait. To be free......



To sit perched on the edge of the earth, a sandpiper, digging to China....
To dance under the mist machine and the neon light of the moon, 17 again, but wiser....
To hear the sea monsters rumbling, grumbling, tumbling in the night and watch them wallow backwards, foamy tails between their legs, when the Sun comes out ....
To slurp beer can oysters
and spurt salt water to the sky....
To build Peace Castles and scribble sand graffiti with my toes....
To sing in the choir, the next rock~n~roll band, the outside shower....
To paint henna tattoos on the legs of strangers
and the backs of friends....
To play driftwood, floating until I wash up on the shore...
To feel the love.....

I climb up the rickety plastic ladder and laugh. Peace is comin'..... Five more days, baby!

These boots were made for.....Peace

I'm just a hippie. I wear flipflops and combat boots. Converse sneakers without laces. I go barefoot. But I broke my foot. And whether that's a haunting or the butterfly effect, I'll never know. But I know this. Every now and then I fall. Just call me Grace.

So I have a secret weapon. Little stilts that hold me up. Prop me up like the plastic ballerina in the mahogany stained box. A brace. But by damned, I'm gonna hide it. So on Friday when the band went Country, I hauled my hippie buns to the Country and Western Store and fetched home a pair of cowboy boots. I can't wear combat boots every Friday night. And Skinny smiled.

"Scratch 'em on the concrete" she said, not wanting me to slide. "You can wear 'em with anything" she said, knowing that I would. And I did. We danced til dawn and I woke up to them abandoned on the porch. Toes scuffed, and heels already lazy. They did me good.

"We're just goin' for burgers and a beer" he said and I climbed right in. Saturdays are like that. I didn't wear my armor.... And never saw her coming....

She snuggled right in behind me, beside me, a Marilyn Monroe wanna~be, plopped up on the picnic table to my right. I turned. "Who in the hell is snugglin' up to my show?" And there she was. Bullet Bra. Smiling... A toothy sort of "I'm gonna getcha" grin....and then she wriggled with glee. The only woman whose ever threatened to whoop my fanny.

I almost shook.

Payback is hell....

And I've been there

so

I smiled back. Stretched my fingers. Made a fist. And before she ever saw it coming,

I bopped her good.

Two fingers to the sky.

"Peace"

"You shoulda worn your cowboy boots" Skinny whispered in my ear....

Butterflies and Hurricanes......

I twisted and twirled the same strand of blonde hair over and over again, weaving a pretend dreadlok back and forth between my fingers. My eyes were sun heavy, and each time I blinked, I did it slowly and savored the moment, my lashes like lazy palmetto fronds fanning me into summer sleep. I was bored with the conversation.

.

She babbled endlessly. A thousand words strung together like a macaroni necklace.... And she fidgeted. To the right, the left, under the table, across the table....A chihuahua frantic for table scraps....

.

She was making her move. Chasing Prince Charming. I blew smoke rings and watched them hover, transluscent doughnuts disappearing when they framed her face. She didn't notice. She didn't see his blue eyes flit from the right to the left and then settle on the pile of paperplates and pastic silverware stacked in front of him. She didn't see the sun falling into the river or the shadows from the giant Cypress trees turning into Gargoyles on the water. She was too busy bustin' her moves.....

.

The band came on and for just a moment, I thought she was going to leap onto the tabletop, Tom Cruise in high heels..... but she just yanked him, snatched him off his feet and swirled him out onto the floor. I took one last swig of cold beer and watched. Skinny arms flailing, legs up and down, spinning, and still.....she babbled on and on and on......"Me" language, her native tongue...

.

Silly girl.......

You lost him at hello....

The Kiss.....

I tiptoed over the hot coquina, his deck shoes with the laces hanging, one step before me. He climbed in and the little electric motor hummed, the roof folding like a sunset behind him. And he smiled. This wasn't the first time and it damned sure wasn't the last time. We had thousands of highway miles between us. I leaned over, fell into the Mustang, and kissed him hard. Stood on the mirrored parking lot and shot peace signs at the rear view mirror while he gunned it, periwinkle confetti flying....

And we laughed....

The last kiss. And we didn't even know it.

Happy anniversary, baby........

"Happy, Happy Week-end" said the Hippie to the sky...

"Hey, I've got an idea! Let's pretend we're at the beach......."

And so we did. Twenty four hours of "feel the love, save the seawall"....All in make~believe.

The little round river grew and grew and grew until it was bottomless and the waves tumbled madly, splashing us, dunking us, pulling us out to sea.....

Blue dolphins circled, an up and down parade of laughter, and we joined them, riding without saddles until we were dizzy, and I was the first one off, falling face first to kiss the ocean. Eyes wide open, the water was champagne, bubbly and delicious and I was tipsy by the time I came up for air, mermaid tail swishing......this way, that way, this way to Treasure Island....

To the Tiki Bar....

To the Sunset.....

To a week at the beach....

At midnight we played SeaCinderella, barefooted and silly....swirling and twirling, paisley shadows under the moon.....

The handsome Prince with the beer moustache laughing, drinking from glass slippers....thirsty for more....

It's Sunday now. And it's quiet. All that's left behind is a blue vinyl pool and sun on my nose....